In communications systems, cabled connections are established when the plugs at the ends of a cable are inserted into the jacks of the devices to be connected. Before insertion of the plug into the jack, metallic contacts in the jack are situated in a pre-insertion position. After insertion of the plug into the jack, the metallic plug interface contacts of the jack are situated in a post-insertion position in which they contact the metallic plug contacts of the plug.
After repeated insertions of plugs into the jacks, the plug interface contacts may not be able to retain their pre- or post-insertion position. This may cause problems in contacting the plug contacts when the plug interface contacts are supposed to be in their post-insertion positions.
The problem of the plug interface contacts retaining their positions may be exacerbated if different plugs are inserted into the jack. Different plugs may have different numbers of plug contacts. Although the number of plug contacts may be different, the size of the plug may remain the same independent of the number of plug contacts. This permits the cavity into which the plug is inserted also to be a standard size. The plug is formed such that the plug contacts are set back within insulating material and are thus electrically and physically isolated from each other. As the number of plug contacts decrease, the outermost plug contacts are eliminated, leaving the thickness of the plug in this area larger. Thus, for example, if a plug with six plug contacts is inserted into a jack having eight plug interface contacts, the two outermost plug interface contacts will be bent further than the six inner plug interface contacts. This stresses the plug interface contacts and may eventually lead to severe distortion of the pre- or post-insertion position. Thus, some of the plug interface contacts may be unable to contact plug contacts when plugs with the same number of plug contacts are inserted into the jack.
In either case, it is thus desirable to increase the mechanical robustness of the plug interface contacts.